Lady Glencora Palliser for a
while endeavoured to defend Lizzie in Liberal circles--from generosity
rather than from any real belief, and instigated, perhaps, by a feeling
that any woman in society who was capable of doing anything extraordinary
ought to be defended. But even Lady Glencora was forced to abandon her
generosity, and to confess, on behalf of her party, that Lizzie Eustace
was--a very wicked young woman indeed. All this, no doubt, grew out of the
diamonds, and chiefly arose from the robbery; but there had been enough of
notoriety attached to Lizzie before the affair at Carlisle to make people
fancy that they had understood her character long before that.
The party assembled at Matching Priory, a country house belonging to Mr.
Palliser, in which Lady Glencora took much delight, was not large, because
Mr. Palliser's uncle, the Duke of Omnium, who was with them, was now a
very old man, and one who did not like very large gatherings of people.
Lord and Lady Chiltern were there--that Lord Chiltern who had been known
so long and so well in the hunting counties of England, and that Lady
Chiltern who had been so popular in London as the beautiful Violet
Effingham; and Mr.
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